Siren
by White Mizerable
Summary: Captain Kirkland had heard all the stories, but he never expected to have to deal with the real thing. Reality is much different than what he had imagined. Rated for dark themes- cannibalism but not really , death, etc.


He'd heard the warnings. Many a sailor was found washed up on the rocks, pale-faced and trembling and afraid, staring into the deep blue waters around him. The only words these men could speak for months were half-crazed ramblings about wicked teeth and translucent skin and eyes as endless as the ocean, hands like vices and high, mocking voices that tempted even the strongest of men into madness. The rumors said that they followed along behind ships, waiting for anyone to fall overboard, silent as the current on a windless day, and that if one was unlucky enough to see them as they swam, that man would be the next to be devoured.

Yes, Arthur had heard the warnings. He'd listened to the tales that were so often told around the fires in the taverns, where merchant and military and pirate alike huddled to be away from the cold. But though the stories filled him with the same subtle fear as other men, and though he kept a wary eye on the waters as he walked along the deck of his ship, he never truly expected those warnings to apply to him. Captain Arthur Kirkland, pirate lord, feared far and wide across the seven seas, had nothing to fear from the silent killers in the ocean. They were stuck in the water, after all. None of his men had ever seen them- perhaps they too had heard of his prowess, and had decided to leave his ship alone. And so Arthur went about his days and duties with some vague sense of protection, some thought of invulnerability.

But then came the storm. And with the storm came the waves, and the winds, and the lightning, and the dark. He barely heard the horrible snapping sound of one mast breaking over the howling tempest. It crashed down onto the deck, right through it, and the waves continued to roll up over the sides, and the storm did not let up. Arthur's throat ached as he screamed orders to his men- they couldn't give up, not now, not to this unexpected act of nature- but more and more of them fell before his eyes, pulled overboard or crushed beneath pieces of the ship as it fell apart. Still Arthur refused to give in. He struggled to maintain control of the wheel, ignoring the way his palms tore and bled on the wood. A wave rushed past him, nearly sweeping him off his feet, and for one wild, terrifying moment, he could have sworn he saw lightning flash off of eyes like the seas and far too many gleaming sharp teeth. Then they were gone.

The storm did not die down until the brilliantly red dawn of the next day, and what the sunlight found on the sea that morning was not what it had left the night before. Where once had been floating a large ship was now merely empty ocean, dotted here and there with the wreckage left behind by nature's temper. There were no bodies to be seen amongst the flotsam, though, none save one. Sprawled out across the battered seats of the ship's sole dinghy was a figure in a long coat. His trademark hat was missing, but there was no mistaking it- the sole survivor of the storm was Captain Arthur Kirkland himself. He lay there, staring up at the sky, gaze clouded, forced to suddenly accept the knowledge that his infamy among humans meant nothing the ocean, and that he and his crew were no less mortal than the rest of the world.

Unfortunately for him, the sun was not the only thing that had taken notice of him. Gentle waves lapped against the side of the dinghy, and two blue, blue eyes stared up at the weathered wood from beneath the water's surface.

Morning passed, and then noon, and finally, as afternoon turned to dusk, Arthur groaned and sat up on the seat, wincing as his tired muscles protested the movement. His clothes, encrusted with the salt the sea had left behind, weighed him down, but he did not take them off for fear of catching a chill from the evening air. Instead, he sat there, heart heavy, and gazed out at the water.

Something moved in the corner of his eye. He turned to look at it, but saw nothing. A frown made its way across his lips. It was likely a fish passing by, one whose scales had caught the sunlight as it moved, nothing more. Yet even as he said that to himself, he felt those old stories begin to bubble their way to the front of his mind, and that spike of fear implant itself within his stomach. Teeth and eyes and vices for hands… But of course it had only been a fish.

Another movement, on the other side of the dinghy. Arthur whipped his head towards it. Still nothing. Another fish, probably, nothing more than that- but now those fears wouldn't leave, firmly rooted in his mind as they were. He started at the sound of a wave hitting the side of the boat. But it was just the wind. Just the wind, just the water, just the sea. Arthur crossed his arms over his chest and drew in a deep breath. He was not some fearful child- he was feared the world over. Some stories told by drunkards around a fire would not be the death of him, not after all he had gone through to survive.

"You look like you could use some help."

The voice was human, and Arthur nearly fell off of his seat in shock at the sound of it. He turned to look behind him at the source. There, floating easily in the water, was a boy, a young man, head and shoulders held above the surface, hands trailing lazily beneath it, torso and feet vanishing down into the inky depths. For one brief moment, Arthur found himself wondering just what a boy would be doing swimming this far out into the ocean. Had the storm blown him closer to an inhabited island than he'd thought? He was opening his mouth to ask just that when the truth struck him, for there was no doubt that it was the truth. His mouth snapped shut, and he scowled out at the boy, whose skin, he could now see, was so pale as to be almost translucent in the evening light.

The boy cocked his head slightly, wide blue eyes glittering in the same way as the water around him. "What, you don't want my help?" His neck looked odd, Arthur noticed, almost as though it had ridges running down its length.

"Your help?" Arthur sneered. The more he looked at this strange young man, the more inhuman he seemed. "I know what sort of help your kind gives. I've heard the stories, and I have no desire to be drowned and eaten, thank you."

For a moment, the young man just stared at him, face unchanging, before a slow smile spread across his lips. It tugged his mouth far beyond where a human's could stretch, creating a mischievous smirk that nearly split his face in two. "So you're not a complete idiot after all. I was getting worried." His head and shoulders sank beneath the water, and Arthur lost sight of him below the waves for a second, and then he reappeared on the other side of the dinghy, barely a foot away from its edge. Below the surface of the ocean, Arthur thought he saw the light catch on something smooth and scaly.

"Don't come any closer!" Arthur reached for the sword at his belt, the one he had always carried around with him, and realized to his horror that it was gone. The raging waters must have stolen that from him as well. Still, though, he did not let up his glare. "If you try and pull me over, I will fight you the whole way down."

The boy snorted in amusement. "Fight me?" Before Arthur could move, before he could even register that the boy had moved, two cold, wet, pale hands were cupping the sides of Arthur's face, and those faintly blue lips were only inches from his own. The boy's breath smelled at once like salt and seaweed and rotten flesh. "If I wanted to kill you now, Captain Kirkland, you would be dead before you knew you'd hit the water." As the boy spoke, voice breathy and dangerous, Arthur could see the light glinting off of the knife-like teeth between his lips.

And then Arthur was falling back into the safety of his dinghy, gasping for breath he hadn't realized he had lost, with only patches of damp skin on his cheeks to show that the boy had touched him at all. The boy himself was floating back away from the boat, looking as innocent as a human child, and the knot of fear within Arthur's stomach tightened. If the boy could move that quickly through the water- if the boy somehow knew his name, who he was- there was no way he could escape. "Why don't you kill me then and get it over with?"

"Well, that's no fun at all." The boy smiled, and this time his lips parted, revealing rows and rows of teeth, the corners of his mouth pulling back and back until those teeth really did split his face in two, and Arthur couldn't force down the shudder that rolled up his spine. "The rest of my pod tells me I should just kill and be done with it, but I like to play a little first. It's so much more interesting when I get to know what it is I'm eating."

Arthur swallowed heavily. "You're a monster."

The boy's smile vanished. He sank further down into the water, until the surface rested just beneath his lips, and stared up at Arthur with cold blue eyes. "I could say the same to you. I'm doing what I have to do to survive. You're the one who killed all those people for fame and glory and gold." He caught Arthur's surprised look and smiled faintly, an almost human expression. "I've been following your ship for a while now, waiting to see if I could get anything from you. You really do leave behind a trail of dead bodies, Arthur."

"Then…" Arthur glanced out over the waves, back towards where he thought the wreckage of his ship might have been had the current not pulled his boat away. It was true, and he was not going to try and deny it. He had done horrible things over the course of his time as captain. "Is that why you're here, then? To punish me for what I've done wrong?"

"Punish you?" the boy asked, obviously startled. "Why would I punish you? You've done bad things, yes, but your bad things kept me alive and healthy." He grinned, baring those terrible teeth again. "I'm just here looking for something to eat, because I think you'll be delicious." Something in his voice deepened, and another shiver slid through Arthur's body.

Silence drew out between them. Then, as evening deepened, and the sky grew darker, Arthur looked at the boy, simply looked, without the echoes of those old stories pervading what he saw. And what he saw was not what he expected. The boy was inhuman, of course, and his mouth was too wide and too dangerous, and the blood that pulsed beneath his skin was horrific to watch, but there was such intelligence in those eyes, intelligence and emotion and thought, that Arthur knew he was speaking with not a primal killer of the deep, but another being. A deadly one, of course, one who intended to devour him, but another living thing that was curious and calculating and perhaps just a little bit understanding, even if they were so different. Arthur sighed. "Do you have a name?"

The boy chuckled and swam closer, close enough that Arthur could have reached down and touched that messy mop of hair. The fear reared its head again, but Arthur didn't move back, and the boy made no more motions forward. "My name is Alfred." He smiled, all teeth. "It's nice to meet you, Captain Kirkland."

Arthur couldn't stop a humorless chuckle from passing through his lips. "Call me Arthur. I'm not the captain of a ship any longer."

"Well," said Alfred, "you are the captain of this." He reached out- Arthur watched his pale hand carefully- and rapped it once against the side of the dinghy.

"Not for long, though." The reason for that was well known to both of them, so neither of them spoke it aloud. Alfred's smile did not fade, even as another silence stretched on between them.

This time, Alfred was the one to break the quiet. "Can I taste you?" he asked, voice curious, but with a faint note of something playful and dark. He moved forward a bit more, slightly closer to the boat, and once again Arthur thought he saw a glimmer of light reflecting from something in the deep.

"Taste me?" Arthur frowned down into those blue eyes. "How do you intend to do that? Eating a finger, maybe? A toe? I would rather like to keep those until I actually die."

Alfred laughed and shook his head. "No, I'd rather save all that for the main course, too." He moved closer still, until his chin was mere inches away from the side of the dinghy as he stared up at Arthur. "Can I kiss you?"

At first, Arthur didn't say a word. He couldn't seem to find any that would be appropriate to answer such a question. To allow such a creature to get so close to him, so intimate… "How do I know I can trust you?" he said finally, gaze searching across Alfred's face.

"Have I lied to you yet?"

Arthur regarded him a moment longer, not speaking, before nodding his head. "Kiss me, then." He leaned forward slightly- dangerous, dangerous- and two cold wet hands came up to rest gently upon his cheeks, and then a pair of blue-tinted lips slipped over his own.

Kisses were not anything new for Arthur. He had been both the recipient and provider of many before, from men and women, and until that moment, he had firmly believed that he understood nearly everything involved in the act. But that had been before Alfred, before the lips upon his were cold instead of warm, before he could feel the mouth shifting and stretching in ways human mouths could not, before sharp teeth played along his lower lip, before everything tasted of salt and rot and bones. He didn't remember closing his eyes, but he realized he must have when they opened to watch Alfred pull away. Alfred kept his promise. There was no tug, no demand for Arthur to follow him into the waters.

"You taste as wonderful as I expected," Alfred murmured. His gaze was darker now, full of the unknown depths of the sea, and something bold and vicious and needy. Arthur wondered if the same look was being reflected from his own eyes. His chest thrummed with fear.

It was dark now, illuminated by the moon and the stars and the ever so faint light of the sun beyond the horizon. The glow transformed Alfred into a ghost, through whose skin Arthur could see muscle and organs and blood, and as he looked down under the water, he saw where that skin ended and the faint shapes of dark scales began. "You still intend to eat me?" Arthur whispered. The waves nearly carried his voice away.

Alfred must have heard something in it though, for his hands came up to rest on the edge of the dinghy, and his eyes grew darker yet, pupils blown wide with longing. "Yes. I couldn't let you go if I tried."

"Will it hurt?" Arthur's hands moved as well, sliding up to rest beside Alfred's pale ones, close but not touching.

"No."

"Will it take a long time?"

"Only as long as you want it to take."

"Will I…" Here Arthur paused, his breath catching at the look in Alfred's eyes. He swallowed and tried again. "Will I enjoy it?"

Alfred's breath hissed out with his answer. "Yes."

Arthur chuckled then, somewhat too high-pitched to be natural, and slid his hands overtop of Alfred's fingers. "I suppose you might as well do it now. It'll be better than dying slow and alone out here." As the words passed through his mouth, he hesitated. Was it truly the better choice, to give himself up to this creature of the deep? Alfred watched him, not moving, not speaking, and Arthur knew that it was. At the very least, he would be giving Alfred a fresh meal as he died, and if what Alfred promised was true- and he had not lied yet- Arthur would enjoy himself until the very end. Yes. This was the decision he wanted to make.

Something of that must have shown in his eyes, for Alfred's smile widened until it split his face, and his wicked teeth gleamed in the moonlight, and hands like vices closed around Arthur's fingers. Before Arthur could move, he felt himself hit the ocean, felt cold, smooth scales wind around his legs, felt the air within his lungs escape up towards the surface and water take its place. His body demanded that he gasp and choke, but all he could find the will to do was stare at Alfred, at those dark eyes and rows of teeth and pale skin across from him beneath the water. He thought he might have smiled.

And then Alfred's mouth opened, opened wide, and Arthur saw hundreds and hundreds of sharp knives moving towards him, felt them clamp down on his shoulder and the side of his neck, felt them rip and tear through his flesh, and he screamed out in the ecstasy of fear and desire as hands like vices slid across his chest and arms, and the coils of Alfred's tail dragged him further and further away from the surface of the water.

High up above in the night sky, the stars glimmered and the moon shone down upon a battered, empty dinghy, floating alone in the middle of the sea.

* * *

A/N- Just uploading some of my older stuff from my LJ and Tumblr, so that it will all be in one place and I won't have to keep searching around for everything. Oh, and of course so that those of you who haven't seen them yet can hopefully enjoy.

Anyway, this was inspired by a theme on the USUK pchat half a year ago. The idea of mermaids with mouths that split their faces comes from a series of books called the "Dark Reflections" trilogy, of which I only read the first. Everything just got progressively weirder, and I know there are major flaws in here, in plot and character development. Feel free to point them out if you want, but I already know about them.

Hope you enjoyed!


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